Cabbies asking for surcharge to cover fuel

Wednesday

Friday the 13th Is coming, and a worrisome omen facing industrialized nations is the Cartel-ian malaise of Pumpilitis -- a crippling budget disease symptomatic of swollen gasoline prices.

Friday the 13th Is coming, and a worrisome omen facing industrialized nations is the Cartel-ian malaise of Pumpilitis -- a crippling budget disease symptomatic of swollen gasoline prices.

Just ask, for example, your local afflicted taxi drivers who are finding themselves in the unenviable position of having to find a Band-aid fix … like raising prices.

Following somewhat the footsteps of Boston taxi drivers, the airlines, trucking companies and fretting individuals, cabbies operating under Barnstable regulations are requesting a modest fuel surcharge of 50 cents for fares up to two miles and $1 above the meter fare over two miles.

Town Manager John Klimm will conduct hearings on this and other taxi matters at 11 a.m. June 24 in the second floor hearing room at Town Hall, 367 Main St.

“It’s hurting,” said driver Ernie Cash of Honest George’s Taxi as he waited for a fare in the fog outside the transportation center bus terminal in Hyannis this week. “It’s hurting real bad.”

He cites an example: “From the Steamship Authority to the bus terminal is about $3.70. The driver gets half of that,” he said. Blend in the higher gasoline prices and he says that run earns about $1 for the driver. “If you spent most of an hour waiting and servicing the fare, you’re earning about $1 an hour,” he said.

The request of local drivers pales by comparison to the rate changes sought by Boston’s cabbies, now represented by the United Steelworkers Union.

They want to increase the per-mile rate by 50 percent and the starting fare from $2.25 to $2.75, it was reported in the Boston Globe. The paper also noted the hikes, if approved, would increase the cost of a 4-mile ride from $11.55 to $16.70, making it one of the more expensive taxi rides in the nation -- just $1.30 less than the $18 cost for the 50-mile trip to Boston from Hyannis on a bus.

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Peter Cutler, a spokesman for Town Taxi, said the price hike would cover drivers in his fleet and all independent owners. He said, after a long analytical pause and emphasizing the role of numerous variables, that a local cab driver’s daily take in the busy summertime is about $100.

“If the driver has to pay the increase in gasoline from that, on an average day he would probably cut $15 or $20 from the $100, leaving him only $80 to $85 in earnings. The proposed surcharge hopefully would take care of that,” Cutler said. “I don’t think the drivers can absorb and extra $20 a day in fuel charges. The company doesn’t see a dime of that, by the way.”

That’s why Town Taxi is also asking Klimm for permission to carry advertisements on the trunk of cars in its 42-car summer fleet. “That would help the company pay for the increase in motor oil that we use and other energy-based maintenance costs,” Cutler said.

He explained that drivers in his fleet are independent contractors, some working full-time and others part-time to supplement income from another job. “They leave here with a tank-full of gas and they have to return with a full tank,” he said. “The last time we got a rate hike, in June of 2006, the per-gallon cost of gasoline was under $3. It keeps going up and isn’t going to go down from the indications that I see.”

Cabbies and others in the transport field are facing another problem as well, a lagging economy that’s forcing potential passengers to make more prudent spending choices -- like walking a mile or two rather than pay increased taxi fares or depending on less expensive mass transportation -- an option not particularly viable on short hauls in Barnstable where public transportation is at a minimum.

Cutler conceded that in the current economy, trips are “drying up while fuel is going up” and says he understands the need for riders to also try to cut costs wherever they can.

Drivers, he said, have become more aggressive for business. Sources of trips come from “hails, flags and radio” including a mobile data terminal affixed to Town Taxis by which calls for service can be broadcast to the closest cab via satellite.

But generally, Cutler said, most of the hails and flags come from three major locations, the airport, the bus and the ferry terminals. “Some drivers have developed a steady clientele of their own that call for service on cell phones directly to the driver,” Cutler said.

Unlike Boston cabbies, Cutler said the local drivers are resisting a fare increase -- to the dismay of some drivers -- opting for the temporary nature of the surcharge so as to deflect or minimize any potential long-term reductions in ridership.

Cash cites another depressing situation for drivers. “Some fares don’t tip. Others give you a dime. You count on tips,” he said. Nationally, it has been reported that tipping is soft because of the sluggish economy.

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